1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to telecommunication systems in general and, more particularly, to a microcell architecture for a telecommunications system.
2. Description of the Related Art
A microcell network architecture typically covers "deadspots" or high traffic density areas occurring in larger macrocells. For example, one cell structure that may be suitable for high traffic personal communication networks includes a plurality of macrocells. A plurality of microcells are selectively deployed within a macrocell in areas of very high traffic density. The microcell architecture allows an increase in caller handling capacity. A typical macrocell may be 1 km or more in radius. A typical microcell may cover an area of approximately 200 m radius, for example, with each microcell typically having a capacity of handling 8.about.16 callers.
Each microcell includes a microcell base station that relays information between any wireless terminals within the microcell and a facility such as a macrocell base station or a wireless switching center. For ease of deployment it is preferable to have small, compact microcell base stations. However, due to the complexity of the communication equipment necessary, particularly when a code division multiple access (CDMA) technique is employed as the communication standard, it is often difficult to design a small compact stand alone microcell base station. In addition, due to the relatively large number of microcell base stations that may be required to cover large traffic areas, it is important to keep the cost of each microcell base station to a minimum.